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Ah, what beautiful timing. Within an hour we have two announcements that are interesting in and of themselves, and fascinating when seen together.

First up, a report from Bloomberg that suggests that is looking at creating its own ride hailing service. It makes sense when you consider that Google is designing its own driverless cars, but it makes less sense when one remembers that Google Ventures is one of Uber's big investors. Oh, and as well as that, Google's chief legal officer, David , actually sits on Uber's board. Repots suggest that Drummond did the ethical thing and told Uber about it - Uber has the sensitive decision to make whether Drummond stays on the board.

up, and according to TechCrunch, comes the suggestion that Uber has recruited robotic researchers from Carnegie Mellon in order to staff a research facility. The facility, to be situated in Pittsburgh is designed to... you guess it, build driverless cars.

After TechCrunch broke the news, Uber released a blog post confirming the news. In Uber parlance, the center is a “partnership” between Carnegie Mellon and Uber. The subtext is that it's a way for Uber to limit its reliance on anyone - especially drivers - Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick has long said that the fact that Uber needs drivers is a temporary annoyance. Drivers take 80% of every transaction that Uber processes - removing them is a very attractive revenue stream. Kalanick has admitted as such, telling a conference recently that:

The reason Uber could be expensive is because you’re not just paying for the car—you’re paying for the other dude in the car. When there’s no other dude in the car, the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than owning a vehicle.

As for the human cost... well, Kalanick has never worried too much about that. According to Uber's chief product offiver, Jeff Holden, Uber has:

the unique opportunity to invest in leading edge technologies to enable the safe and efficient movement of people and things at giant scale. This collaboration and the creation of the Uber Advanced Technologies Center represent an important investment in building for the long term of Uber.

Clearly driverless cars are the future. And "Uber-like" approaches are the future as well. But there is significant tension that will occur in the process - this Google/Uber upset is an example of that.